Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 165: Farewell

"I am someone who did not die when I should have died..." came his hoarse voice. "I have always been homesick for arms that never held me when I needed them then. I became who I was to protect myself. Still, I never regretted any moment in my entire life, not even when that incident happened many years ago with you—because if it hadn’t happened, I’d never have known who you were. The only moment I ever regret in my entire existence is this very moment. I wish you never had to see me this way...

He breathed in roughly and then made an attempt to smile as he looked at her, his head turning to the side, his red eyes glimmering darkly beneath the shadow of pain.

"I want you to know that you are mine," he whispered, a bitter smile carved on his unrecognizable face. "You have always been mine. Only mine. Remember that. But I also want you to know that I never intended to hurt you then... and certainly not now. I... I am sorry."

Belle’s eyes welled with tears that rolled down her cheeks like a broken dam, her throat working as it burned with emotions. She watched as he grabbed his head and cried out like a wounded animal, a cry so loud it broke and gripped something in her heart, twisting it, tearing through it, until it ached like it was bleeding inside her chest.

He frantically used his finger to push at something in his ears, and she looked towards it.

All motion seized her as she noticed that inside his ears were the cotton she had put in for him to block the noise. It was still there, only it was bloody.

He tried to push at the cotton like the noise was unbearable, and at that, she realized he was still her Rohan, the same man she had worried endlessly for and loved with everything in her heart.

As he knelt there with broken wings and a bloody body, trying to speak but unable to, she felt something restore in her heart, and something lifted from her eyes to make her see through the unfamiliar man before her.

How could she turn her back on him? And how could she still feel this way towards him when he looked the way he did now?

How could her heart still call out to a creature who had mercilessly almost killed her as a child and ruined what she would have had with her parents? Because of him, she had no chance of experiencing a better childhood. She cried herself to sleep every single night as a child because her mother would not hold her and call her sweet names.

Because of him, her father thought of her as a bad omen and locked her up in a room for days without food. Her father, who had held her and kissed her cheeks and called her "my sweet angel," looked upon her with resentment and disgust.

Because of him, she never got to sleep with both eyes closed at night. She was seen as ugly, with a scar that had taken away her brow.

Because of him...

"Isa..." he groaned out her name again as he began to crawl away from her direction this time around. "If things go well, I shall disappear for a couple of years and there will be no way to get hold of me... and if things go bad, this will be the last time we’ll ever meet again. You promised not to hate me. Don’t go back on your promise. I sincerely apologize for bringing you into this dangerous world and not being able to stand with you until we see it through...

"I have always been a monster and will always be that. Farewell, my heart."

Because of him, she resumed her thoughts, she had gotten to experience the love of a partner and got to live like a princess in his home.

"Isa..."

He had spoken her name with a voice that sounded so forced out and in pain that Belle did not realize she was running towards him, whimpering and calling his name—until she was gripped from behind.

She did not even care to see who had held her wrist from behind. She jerked her hand to pull away and go to her husband, but her other hand was gripped as well, and she turned on the person to see it was none other than Rav.

"You can’t go to him anymore, my lady. We need to leave before he finishes turning," Rav said with a sense of urgency.

"Let go of my hand!" Belle cried as she tried to pull away from the man, but her strength was nowhere close to Rav’s, who was a vampire.

"He is no longer His Lordship. He is infected! We have to leave now!" He began to pull her away, but the lady began to fight him, refusing to listen to any of the words he was saying to make her understand that Rohan was losing himself and would be lost forever.

"I said, let go of me, you bastard!!" she screamed, turning on him and slamming her head into his chest. But Rav never loosened his grip on her, his hands firm, unrelenting, as he kept dragging her away.

Belle did not want to leave, not without Rohan. Not without him.

He was struggling and writhing on the ground now, his chest rising and falling, and then he suddenly stood up. Without looking in her direction, he dashed into the trees, running with a speed that was similar to the rogues.

"Rohan!" she screamed, but he never turned back to her. He never looked back. He never did.

"We need to go after him, Rav! Do something!" she gritted furiously as she kept struggling—but her struggling immediately ceased when she noticed tears in Rav’s eyes as he watched his master’s retreating back disappear into the woods.

For someone like Rav, who never truly carried any emotions on his face, to shed tears right now meant the situation was bad, and something was terribly wrong and about to get even worse. She felt her insides sink even before she asked the question.

"What’s going on? What has happened to him?" she demanded, her voice turning hysterical. When he did not answer her, she began to frantically try to get away from his hold again.

But Rav looked at her and muttered, "I am sorry," and before she could wonder why he was apologizing instead of going after his master, he used the back of his hand to hit her neck.

Belle fell unconscious before she could even know it. She fell against him, and Rav, with a heavy heart, gathered her into his arms and turned away, walking from there without once looking back.